KING: The fight against police brutality is David versus an army of Goliaths — but I still believe we will win

People protest in support of Philando Castile during a rally on June 16, 2017. (ERIC MILLER/REUTERS)

Today is Part 5 in an emergency five-part series on the dramatic and specific shifts we must make to actually reduce police brutality in America. We are losing this battle. The problem is getting worse. New strategies are required — as outlined in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

The sustained crisis of police brutality, followed by charade of grand juries, charges and trials — culminating either in a deadlocked hung jury or a unanimous exoneration of the officer(s) involved, has pushed millions of Americans to a point of apathy or even hopelessness. Many have told me that they were already there last year, or the year before, but now, more than any single point I can remember, the collective despondency has reached a crescendo.

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I had very little hope that the officers who shot and killed Terence Crutcher or Philando Castile would be held responsible, but the operable word there is "hope." While I had little, I still had some. Each shooting was woefully excessive and unnecessary. Crutcher and Castile were non-violent men. Neither committed any violent crimes or posed an actual threat the officers. Both incidents were filmed. Both men were amazingly popular in their respective communities. For all of those reasons, and more, a very small part of me still held out a tiny sliver of hope that some charge, any charge, would stick.

But it didn't. And, like we've seen in so many other cases that came before these, the officers were set free and walked out of the court room, spiffy and polished. The system that had so reliably set other brutal cops free before them had performed as scheduled.

Protests erupt after police officer who shot Philando Castile found not guilty

That system that is beating us, demoralizing us, humiliating us, did not simply create itself. It was designed by real people with have bad intentions. It has architects, bricklayers, experts, engineers, repairmen, and security guards. It has insurance. It has endless streams of revenue. It has attorneys. It has lobbyists. It has PR firms. It has several million employees.

If you ever had the impression in any one of the police brutality cases that have ripped your heart out across the years that we were fighting against a single brutal cop, that's where your mistake began. While each case of police brutality on the most granular level may be unique, with different cops and victims and circumstances and evidence, the results are the same — in case after case after case — because what we aren't fighting isn't just against that one cop, or that one police department, but against a well-funded, well-organized, heavily fortified machine.

Holding a single cop responsible for their brutality seems about as difficult as holding an unethical, dishonest President of the United States responsible. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe Donald Trump is dishonest, but holding him responsible for his dishonesty, now that he is in office, has proven itself to be a tenuous, frustrating battle. As it turns out, the government has no authentic mechanism in place to ensure that the President of the United States is a person of integrity other than the fact that we get to vote every four years for who holds that office. Pre-president Trump was a menace, but now he is a menace with significant parts of the federal government and the most powerful military in the world at his fingertips.

Philando Castile was fatally shot on July 6, 2016. (Jim Mone)

Trump is no longer just a single man — he holds an office, in a system, governed by a unique set of laws and powers. He is generally backed by a majority in the House, Senate and even the Supreme Court. The power of Trump, as President, or any President for that matter, is widely accepted.

In a similar fashion, it appears to be nearly as difficult to hold police officers accountable, no matter how random, no matter how horrible their record, no matter how heinous and destructive their actions.

The Supreme Court backs them. The strong majority of conservative Republicans, and an unspeakable amount of Democrats, back them. The District Attorneys they work with day in and day out back them. Powerful police unions and the NRA back them. Junk scientists, who've built their entire careers testifying for money that police violence is nearly unavoidable back them.

Terence Crutcher (r.) with his twin sister Tiffany (l.). (AP)

The fight against police brutality in America is not even David versus Goliath — it's David versus an army of Goliaths. Yet, I still believe that we will win. Our organization, our anger, our protests, by and large, have moved from incident to incident. And I understand why, but we must find a way to express our outrage about individual cases of injustice while focusing our time, energy and resources on dismantling the systems that make such injustices possible in the first place.

My mind operates in metaphors and illustrations, so please allow me to share a couple to help you understand the mental shift we need to make to combat what we're truly up against.

Imagine the largest corporation in the world decided to move their offices, and over 25,000 employees from California to New York. Now imagine packing an overnight bag for a trip between Orlando and Miami. What we're doing right now to combat police brutality is that overnight bag. What we need to be doing is moving the largest corporation in the world from one coast to another. See the difference?

Imagine a book falling off of the shelf of the largest library in the world. You reach down, grab the book, and put it back where you think it goes. Now, imagine digitizing every book in that library by scanning every single page of every single book, and giving it an easily searchable online database accessible to all. What we're doing right now against police brutality is more like putting that book back on the shelf. The size and magnitude of our efforts needs to look much more like digitizing the millions and millions of titles in the entire library. The task is mammoth. That's what we're facing.

We must reorient our minds to the size, scope, and magnitude of this battle or we will forever be stuck where we are right now.